8. Tracy

8

Tracy

It had taken Ever less than twenty-four hours to ruin my favorite gym. The photos he'd posted online that first day had been beautiful and artistic, and he'd waxed poetic about the place. By the next morning, it was totally overrun with overly excited fanboys and fangirls in spandex.

While this uptick in members was great news for Pete, the gym's owner, it sucked for us regulars. I kept thinking the selfie crowd would quickly lose interest, but three weeks later, it was more crowded than ever. So much for my quiet, uninterrupted workout.

Even though they tied up all the equipment and made a show of exercising, these people weren't there for the gym. Not really. They'd come to rub elbows—and of course, take pictures—with Ever, who they treated like a celebrity.

Watching him with his adoring public was fascinating. He was upbeat and unfailingly cheerful as he posed for countless photos, listened to everyone's stories, and offered them advice and encouragement.

It was a good reminder not to read too much into it when he showed an interest in me. It wasn't because I was special to him. That was just Ever being Ever.

After the night we went to the club and I got completely hammered, he'd been killing me with kindness. It had to be a pity thing. He thought I didn't remember what I'd said and done that night, and while there were some hazy bits, I recalled far too much of it. I refused to come across as that needy ever again, so since that night, I'd tried to keep some distance between us—but not in a literal sense, since we were together all the time.

It wasn't just that we lived in the same apartment and went to the gym together every morning. He'd also started volunteering at the shelter where I worked, four days a week, because he had so much time on his hands. On top of that, he'd totally bonded with Vee and his housemates and had become a regular fixture at Sunday dinner.

I didn't begrudge him any of this. He was trying to put down roots in a new city, and at first, I'd been the only person he knew. No wonder he'd woven himself into every part of my life.

It was tough though, living in his orbit while the crush I had on him grew stronger every day. I'd really only admitted it to myself the night at the club. Unfortunately, I'd admitted it to him too that same night, but he'd probably written it off as random drunken bullshit.

I kept reminding myself I only needed to keep a lid on it for a few more weeks, just until he moved into his own apartment and was no longer a constant source of temptation.

And that was the biggest reason of all for wanting to keep Ever at arm's length—he was going to leave. All too soon, he was going to move into his new apartment and get extremely busy with his multi-million-dollar fitness center, and he'd forget all about me. If I got attached to him, I'd just end up getting hurt. Why go down that path, when I knew exactly where it led?

And why was I thinking about all of this now, while I was trying to work out? As usual, Ever had accompanied me to the gym, which was overrun with people in spandex wanting things from him. I tried to concentrate on my routine, but I kept finding myself looking to see where he was and what he was doing.

Of course, what he was doing was being incredibly sweet and kind. A group of four little old gay men in their seventies had joined the gym specifically to meet Ever, and he was showing them how to use some of the equipment. They spent more time ogling him than paying attention, but if he noticed, he was very gracious about it.

Eventually, he managed to break away and begin his own workout. He asked me to spot him as he loaded up a massive barbell, and as I took my position at the top of the bench, I said, "Pete Howard should be paying you a consulting fee. You spend more time coaching his customers than his staff does."

"It's the least I can do. My fitness center will probably pull customers from every gym in town, including this one, which was already hanging on by a thread. I'd hate to drive someplace this special out of business, so if there's anything I can do to help, I'm all for it."

"Is your fitness center going to have a boxing ring?"

"I was thinking about including one, but no. I'd rather send people here if that's what they're looking for."

"Why are you so enamored with this gym?"

"You just don't find places like it anymore. It feels like stepping back in time, in the best possible sense."

"It's odd to me that you're so into it, since you're building something that's its exact opposite."

He shrugged. "Look at it like this. In automotive terms, my gym would be a sleek, modern supercar, and this place would be an extremely cool retro muscle car. They might be completely different, but I can love and appreciate both for what they are." That analogy actually made sense to me.

When he took his position, flat on his back with his legs straddling the weight bench, my gaze went straight to his big thighs and the obvious bulge in his form-fitting red shorts. Fucking hell, I needed to get a grip.

I made sure to concentrate when he started lifting that impressively heavy weight. Once he finished his reps, he asked if I wanted to trade places, and I nodded.

We removed sixty pounds from the barbell, and I got into position on the bench. Ever took his place at the top of my head and grinned as he told me, "You did a real number on your hair when you wiped your face."

His touch seemed surprisingly intimate as he smoothed my hair off my forehead. I looked up at him, and when we made eye contact, both of us became very still.

For a few seconds, everything was quiet. I forgot where we were, or that other people existed in the world. It felt like we were both holding our breath, waiting for something to happen.

In the next instant, a phone rang nearby, someone loudly answered the call, and reality came rushing back to us. I grabbed the barbell with both hands and tried to think about anything besides Ever's proximity.

After we finished working out, we jogged home, showered, and changed. Then he drove us to the shelter, which was located in a beautiful, vintage former firehouse.

About three hours into my shift, Ever had finished the exercise class he conducted for anyone who was interested, and all of the residents had gone out for the day. That just left him and me in the building.

I was in the ground floor rec room—an open, cheerful space with clusters of colorful furniture, a wall of shelves stuffed with books and games, and a TV with two different gaming systems. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and we'd just received a donation of several boxes of fall decorations. They'd been used at a wedding reception over the weekend, and the bride's family had decided to bring them here now that they were done with them. The shelter had a lot of support from the community, and interesting things were always showing up.

I'd started dotting mini pumpkins around the room when Ever joined me and asked if he could help. I handed him a wreath, and he immediately put it on like a crown and went to turn on some music. He almost always had something playing, and not surprisingly, today he went with his favorite band. As Cheap Trick's "Dream Police" came to us in surround sound through the rec room's built-in speakers, he began to shake his hips to the music.

I secretly admired how unselfconscious he was. The same couldn't be said for me, though. When he danced over to me and stuck a wreath on my head, I immediately tried to take it off. He caught my hand, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief as he told me, "You should leave it on. It suits you."

"I doubt that."

"It does! It makes you look like a Roman emperor."

"Because that's clearly the goal."

"Before you take it off, take a picture with me," he said. "I promise not to post it."

"If you're not going to post it, then what's the point of taking a photo?"

"It's for me, so I can always remember the time Tracy Garcia loosened up for one whole minute."

He was teasing me, but I muttered, "Fine. Go ahead."

Ever stuck his face next to mine and snapped a photo with his ever present phone. Then he showed me the screen and grinned. "We look like we stepped out of ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream.' I love it."

"Look at you, dropping Shakespearean references."

"Don't sound so surprised," he said. "I read, you know."

"Nutrition labels don't count."

A bark of laughter burst from him, and I grinned a little. Then, as he started untangling a leafy silk garland, he asked, "When are you going to come and see my building? The construction crew made a lot of progress on it over the past couple of weeks, and it's really starting to take shape."

"I'll come see it whenever you invite me."

"I asked you twice this month if you wanted to go with me when I visited the job site."

"That's too vague," I said, as I unpacked a box of gourds. "You need to specifically invite me, so I know you actually want me there."

"Please come with me to see my building on your next day off."

"I'd love to."

"Good. I'm glad that's settled." He looked amused.

"Did you get that problem taken care of? The one that had something to do with the earthquake retrofit?"

"Yup. Like most problems with that building, all I had to do was throw fistfuls of cash at it, and my crew got it fixed. I really need that to be it though, because my budget can't take any more surprises."

I asked, "Have you thought about doing a membership presale to generate some income before the place opens?"

"I'm definitely going to do that, but not yet. I just keep thinking, what if something happens between now and when we're supposed to open in April? I don't want to take anyone's money until I'm one hundred percent certain I can really make this happen, which means I'll only do a presale maybe two months out."

"Something might delay the grand opening, but you don't really believe it might not open at all, do you?"

"I don't want to think that way," Ever said. "But you never know."

"It's going to work out. Even if problems come up, you'll be able to deal with them."

"How do you know?"

"Because I believe in you."

He grinned at that. "Look at you, being my cheerleader. It's kind of like being given a pep talk by Eeyore."

I chuckled and told him, "I'm hardly Eeyore."

"Hey, if the pinned on tail fits."

"Well, given the choice, I'll take that over being Tigger."

He pretended to look offended. "Are you insinuating that I'm Tigger?"

I couldn't help but tease him a little. "Let's compare. Loud? Check. Overly bouncy? Check. Annoying?"

"He's not annoying, he's loveable! Only Eeyore would find him annoying."

"Tigger would post a million photos of himself if he could." I put on a cartoony voice and waved my arms as I called, "Look at me, everybody! Hoo-hoo!"

Ever burst out laughing and exclaimed, "Shut up!"

"Make me."

I didn't know why I said that, but those words did something to him. He took a step closer, his eyes sparkling as he asked, "Is that a challenge?"

"What if it is?"

When he pinned me to the wall of built-in bookshelves, I didn't fight it. Both of his hands were pressed against my chest, so he had to feel the way my heart started racing as his gaze dropped to my mouth. He murmured, "I like challenges."

Anticipation crackled between us. I'd been trying so hard to keep a lid on my attraction to him, but it was impossible. Somehow, it seemed like he was losing a similar battle.

He started to lean in, but then a deep voice from across the room broke the spell. "Oops! Looks like I'm interrupting something."

Ever quickly retreated, as if we'd been caught doing something wrong. I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks as I glanced at my ex and muttered, "Hi, Sawyer."

"Hey, Tracy. Sorry to barge in."

"No, it's fine." I gestured from one man to the other and tried to keep the introductions simple. "Sawyer MacNeil, meet Ever Daley, one of our volunteers." I turned to Ever and told him, "Sawyer's husband co-founded the shelter."

Sawyer put down the cardboard box he'd been carrying, and both men met in the center of the room. As they shook hands and exchanged dazzling smiles, Sawyer asked, "Why do you look familiar?"

"You might have seen me on YouTube, or Instagram."

"That's it!"

"I recognize you, too. You own that chain of amazing coffee houses."

While they gushed over each other, I glanced from one to the other. They were both tall and muscular, and both were huge successes in their chosen fields, but there the similarities ended. Sawyer was sophisticated and gender-nonconforming, as likely to reach for a miniskirt as a pair of jeans. He was dressed down today in an all-black outfit consisting of slim-fitting pants, boots with heels, and a V-neck cashmere sweater. Meanwhile, Ever in his T-shirt and shorts looked like Sporty Spice to Sawyer's Posh Spice.

I didn't know why that occurred to me, but it made me chuckle. I tried to cover it with a cough, and both men turned to me with questions in their eyes. To deflect the attention away from myself, I asked Sawyer, "What brings you here?"

Suddenly, I remembered I was still wearing a wreath on my head, same as Ever. I self-consciously took it off and set it aside as Sawyer told me, "I stopped by to drop off some of our special edition holiday coffee, fresh from our roasters. I thought the residents and staff might enjoy it."

"They'll love it. How's your husband?" I rarely saw one without the other.

"Alastair's doing great. He's currently running a few errands. We're getting ready to fly to Scottsdale to visit my dad for Thanksgiving, and there are always a million things to do before a trip."

"I didn't realize he'd moved to Arizona."

"Yeah, at the start of the year. The warmer, drier climate agrees with him."

Sawyer and I ran out of chit-chat at that point. We both fidgeted awkwardly for a moment, until he said, "I should get going, since my to-do list is a mile long. Good to meet you, Ever. Happy Thanksgiving to you both."

We both called, "Happy Thanksgiving," in unison. As soon as he was gone, Ever asked, "What's the story with you two?"

"What makes you think there's a story?"

"Because that got awkward really fast."

"We were involved once, a lifetime ago."

Ever grinned. "Is that the type of man you're drawn to?"

"What type are you referring to?"

His grin got wider. "Coffee moguls."

"Back then, he was a soldier. We were both stationed in Afghanistan. Obviously, this was years before he met his husband."

"He's married to Alastair Spencer-Penelegion, isn't he? The heir to a department store empire in the UK?"

"Right."

"It's been a few years, but our friend Roger used to be the head of Alastair's security detail."

"I know."

"And as you pointed out, Alastair is co-founder of this shelter."

"Yes."

"I'm trying to see the whole picture here," he said. "You work at a place his husband founded, and you rent a room from his husband's former bodyguard. But it didn't seem like you and Sawyer are close friends, since you didn't know his dad had moved out of state."

"Is there a question in there somewhere?"

Ever shrugged. "I guess I'm just trying to figure out how you ended up here."

"It's a long story."

"I have time."

I plucked the wreath off his head and handed it to him. "No, you don't. We need to get these decorations done if we want to surprise the residents."

"I can talk and decorate at the same time." To illustrate his point, Ever tossed the wreath like a Frisbee, and it landed crookedly on a lampshade. "Come on. Indulge my curiosity."

"Fine." As I went to retrieve the wreath, I said, "When I first came to San Francisco, I didn't know anyone but Sawyer."

"Did you come here for him?"

I nodded. "This was a few years after Afghanistan. We'd lost touch, but then we bumped into each other by chance. I took it as a sign and came to San Francisco hoping we could start fresh, but I was too late. He'd already met Alastair."

"But you decided to stay."

"I had nowhere else to go."

Ever looked sympathetic. "So, then what happened?"

"After he shot me down, he saw how lost I was and tried to help me. He introduced me to some of his friends, and they brought me into their social circle. He also suggested volunteering here at the shelter. He thought it would be good for me, and he was right."

"He sounds like a nice guy."

"He is."

"I'm still surprised you stuck around," Ever said. "Wasn't it hard to see him with his new man?"

"Yeah, it was. It's part of the reason I left for a while. That's when I moved to Catalina Island with my friend Gabriel, who I met through Sawyer. We both ended up coming back here eventually, but by then, a lot had changed."

I leaned against the edge of a table and continued, "Most importantly, I'd finally gotten over Sawyer. And then several things ended up falling into place, which convinced me this was where I belonged. I met Roger through a mutual friend, and he rented me an affordable room in that great apartment. When I came back to the shelter to see if they needed volunteers, they hired me as a program assistant. Also, I started taking classes at the community college and began working toward the goal of becoming a counselor."

After a pause, Ever asked, "Are you really, truly over him?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"Then why did it stir up a strong reaction when you saw him?"

It usually didn't affect me that much—not anymore. But this time he'd appeared out of the blue, just as Ever and I were having a moment. My guard had been down, and the last thing I'd expected was for my past and present to suddenly collide. It threw me off, so no wonder Ever had picked up on it.

"What I feel when I see him is guilt and shame," I admitted. "It's hard for me to be around him, because I treated him like shit when we were together. I've apologized and he's forgiven me because he's a saint, but I can never forgive myself."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't deserve forgiveness."

"Sure you do. Everyone deserves forgiveness."

I muttered, "No, not everyone," and turned my attention to the boxes of donations. As I held up a green and yellow thing shaped like a question mark, I asked, "What the hell is this, and where should we put it?"

"It's a gourd, and please don't change the subject."

"It's hard to talk about this." I shut my eyes, as if that would block the memories that were threatening to come flooding back. After a moment, I said softly, "I was a mess, lost and confused and full of self-loathing, and then I was dropped into the middle of a war. It was too much for me. The only thing I could do was shut off all my emotions, or I would have totally broken down."

"That's nothing to be ashamed of. You were in survival mode, and that was the only way you could get through it."

"But I made a mistake. I never should have gotten involved with Sawyer, because I was an empty shell with nothing to give him. I didn't know how to love or be loved. Hell, I didn't even know how to accept the fact that I was gay back then. I tried to convince him, and myself, that what we had was only about sex, nothing more. But he fell in love with me, and I pushed him away. By the time I was strong enough to tell him I loved him too, it was way too late. He'd met Alastair and moved on."

"You must resent his husband."

I shook my head. "Just the opposite. I'm grateful he came along when he did, because he's exactly what Sawyer deserves—a good man who adores him, freely and openly. I couldn't give him that. I was too broken."

I took a breath and added, as I studied my fidgeting hands, "I don't know why I put that last part in the past tense. I'm still broken, even after countless hours of therapy and years spent trying to heal. Not like I was, but I have a long way to go."

Ever closed the distance between us and ran his knuckles along my cheekbone. The gesture confused me at first, but my confusion turned into embarrassment when I realized he was brushing away a tear. "There's nothing wrong with being a work in progress," he said gently.

I started to reply, but we were interrupted by loud, cheerful voices coming from the front of the building. A moment later, two of the shelter's residents joined us. They wanted to help when they saw the decorations, and as the boys began rummaging through the boxes, I told them, "Sawyer MacNeil dropped off some fancy coffee. I'll go make us some."

After I brought the box of coffee to the kitchen, I exhaled slowly and braced my hands on the counter. I hadn't planned to spill my guts, and I could only imagine what Ever thought about all of that.

He needed to hear it though, because I was pretty sure he'd been about to kiss me before Sawyer walked in. I was someone who should come with a warning label—Ever had to see that now. All the reasons to stay away from me had just been spelled out for him in big, bold letters.